Note: if you’ve found this and want to make a comment about how football is such a more exiting sport than soccer, or think this is some sort of anti-football post … then you’re missing the point. This is about LIVE ACTION stats and the viewing experience. If you love Cricket, you’ll sit there for 5 hour test matches where there’s fractions of periods of real action. If you love football, then you’ll sit there for hours on end. That’s not the point here.

Editor Post-publishing Update: this was originally published in July of 2013. Over the years I have updated this post with additional information, resulting in adjusted numbers from the original. I’m always looking for more and better information and am all ears if you have links to these kinds of studies.

I’ve never been the biggest NFL fan, despite living in a distinctly football town here in Washington DC. But in the past few years or so, slowly my patience for watching an entire NFL football broadcast has ended. Notice how games used to be slated for 1pm and 4pm on Sundays? Now they’re 1pm and 4:15pm, or maybe even 4:25pm, with seemingly all that extra time now devoted to commercials. Every time there’s a time-out, a break in play, after every challenge, there’s more commercials. My friends and I have a joke. I’ll ask “Hey, what time is the 8:00 game?” And instead of the answer being obvious … the answer is 8:15 or 8:30 or whenever they’ve now pushed the late Sunday night game thanks to the 4:00 games running late (you know, since they now start at 4:15 or 4:25 or whenever they’re slated to start).

Ironically, the same distinct lack of action complaint is easily seen in baseball broadcasts. So I can’t be casting too many hypocritical stones against my football-following brethren (this is a Baseball-focused blog after all).

I got to wondering; just how many frigging commercials do they really show in NFL games these days? This pursuit led to the larger issue: How often is the ball actually in play in an NFL game? How often are the fans just sitting there watching crowd shots or replays or pictures of cheerleaders or head coaches looking constipated?

So I started looking far and wide for “Ball in Play” studies for the 5 major professional sports to compare and contrast the TV viewer experience. Here’s what I’ve found (all sources are listed at the bottom and referenced inline). For some sports (Hockey and Basketball) it is relatively easy to assume that, if the clock is running, there’s action. For the others, with either a lack of a clock (Baseball) or significant periods of inactivity while the clock is running (Soccer to some extent but especially in Football) the details are harder to come by.

Baseball: Per the 2013 WSJ study, Baseball games feature 17 minutes and 58 seconds of action. Baseball games have been increasing in length (thanks in part to the eighteen annual 4-hour marathons between the glacial Boston Red Sox and equally glacial New York Yankees) over the years. But, the amount of action has stayed roughly the same. A 1952 TV broadcast showed about 13 minutes of action but just 9 minutes 45 seconds of commercials. The latest WSJ study found that fully 42 minutes and 41 seconds of between-inning inactivity would be purely commercial time on TV broadcasts. That means there’s nearly 5 times as many commercials now than 50 years ago. 2015: thanks to new pace of play rules, the average length of a baseball game dropped by 6 minutes from 2014. 2017 update: ESPN published a study of the 2017 playoffs, which have been dragging. The average MLB playoff game in 2017 has been going 3hrs, 35mins, which is up 10 minutes from 2016 and an astonishing 21 minutes from 2015. I get that playoffs are more strategic, that pitchers are on quick hooks b/c there’s a finite amount of time, but this 3hrs 35mins is brutal.

Football: Per the WSJ 2010 study, NFL games feature about 11 minutes of action. The amount of action in football games has been roughly the same since the early 1900s. There was roughly 13 1/2 minutes of action in 1912, and slightly less in the 2010 study. Other studies have shown that football generally ranges between 12-17 minutes of action. Personally I tracked one quarter of an NFL playoff game a few years ago with these numbers: in 50 minutes of clock time we saw exactly 250 seconds of action (4 minutes, 10 seconds) accompanied by no less than 20 commercials. And this turned out to be a relatively “easy” quarter: one time out, one two-minute warning and two challenges/reviews. It could have been a lot worse. More recent studies have found that things are worsening for the NFL: WP’s Fred Bowen counted the ads in a 2014 NFL game and had seen an astounding 152 advertisements during the game. 152; that was more ads than plays from scrimmage. Update for 2015: the early returns on the first few weeks of the season show a huge up-tick in penalties, which have slowed the game by four minutes from 2014 and average times are now at 3hrs 10minutes for games. 2017 update: the NFL has made some tweaks and the average game length through 2 weeks is down significantly, to 3hrs 4mins from 3hrs 15minutes in 2016.

Basketball: NBA games average 2 hours and 18 minutes in actual time. Working backwards (since the clock only runs when the ball is in play and we know there’s exactly 48 minutes of play time) we know that there’s 138-48 = 90 minutes of “down time” of some sort in a typical NBA game. Not all of that is commercial time but all of it is inaction. I cannot find any documentation of typical number of commercials so i’ve just split the difference between on-screen inaction and off-screen commercials in the table below. If you’re a big-time NBA watcher and feel this isn’t fair, please comment as such.

Hockey: The Livestrong piece below (side note: why is Livestrong doing “ball-in-play” studies on Hockey?) quotes average NHL games being 2hours and 19minutes in the 2003-4 season. Working backwards from this, you have three 20-minute periods and two 17 minute intermissions, which leaves 46 minutes of remaining idle time. Given that the idle times in Hockey are not nearly as long as those in basketball, I’m going to estimate that about 2/3rds of that 46minutes is commercials.

Soccer: Per the Soccerbythenumbers.com website 2011 study, between 62 and 65 minutes of ball-in-play action is seen on average in the major European pro leagues per game. For the table below i’ll use 64 minutes as an average. The duration of pro soccer games is relatively easy to calculate: they fit neatly into a 2 hour window by virtue of its 45minute halves, 15 minute break and an average of 3 minutes added-time on either side of the halves. 45+45+3+3+15 = 111 minutes of a 2 hour/120 minute time period. Thanks to a bit of fluff on either side of the game, you generally count a soccer broadcast to last 1 hour and 55 minutes. In the table below i’ve assumed that a huge portion of the intermission is commercial; in fact it is a lot less since most soccer broadcasts have a half-time show and highlights. So if anything, the # of commercials in soccer broadcasts is less than listed. Post 2014 World Cup Update: FIFA estimates that the group stage games averaged 57.6 minutes of action per game (if i’m reading their stat page correctly). I’ll use this as the number going forward, even though World Cup games might be a bit “slower” than your average pro soccer game due to the careful, tactical nature of most of the matches.

So, in summary, here’s how the five major sports look like in terms of Ball in Play and # of commercials the viewer is forced to endure in a typical broadcast:

Sport

Clock Duration

Amt of Action

% of Action

Amt of Commercial Time

Est # of 30-second commercials

# of commercials/hour

Baseball

2hrs 56mins

17mins, 58secs

10.21%

42.68

85

29

Football

3hrs 10mins

11mins

5.79%

75

150

47

Soccer

1hr 55mins

57.6mins

50.09%

19

38

20

Basketball

2hrs 18mins

48mins

34.78%

45

90

39

Hockey

2hrs 20mins

60mins

42.86%

30

60

26

From this you can clearly see that watching Soccer gives you the most amount of live “Action,” though cynics and soccer-haters would probably claim that a lot of that action is “dead action,” defenders passing the ball around and not the type of action you see in other sports. I’m a soccer fan and would rather have this type of “dead action” than what we see in the NFL: one 3 second running play then more than 30 seconds of watching players stand around before running another 3 second running play. Don’t be fooled; there’s plenty of dead action in other sports too that gets counted as “live action” here … players walking the ball up the court in slow motion for 10 seconds in Basketball, the dumping of the puck to the end of the ice to facilitate a line shift in Hockey, etc. So this kind of analysis is not an exact science.

Soccer is easily the most predictable of the five sports to plan a viewing experience around; you know for a fact that a regular-season/non-Overtime game is going to be over within 2 hours. All the other sports can go into over-time and lengthen the time commitment.

Professional Football is at the bottom of all of these Viewer-experience measures: it is the longest broadcast, shows the least amount of game action and forces around 50 commercials an hour onto its viewers. And the NFL is only getting worse; recent years have seen the introduction of new commercial breaks where none existed before (after a kickoff being the most ridiculous, but the mandated booth reviews at the end of halves now gift-wrap new commercial breaks to broadcasters at a game’s most critical time).

Thoughts? If you have better information I’m all ears. I’ve had very good suggestions to add to this data stuff like College Football, College Basketball and Tennis. Perhaps some day with more research we’ll revisit.

96 Responses to 'How much live action occurs in each sport? Ball in Play studies summarized'

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Todd, thanks for putting this together. I found this information very interesting and enlightening. I played colege football and baseball and broadcasted both, as well as basketball but I have become a huge soccer fan. My freind from Uganda complained about football, “what is this sport? you run a play then hold a committee meeting! It is more committee meetings than sport!” Loved his analogy. I truly beleive soccer is going to continue to make inroads in the USA. There are so many advantages to playing it. I am 51 and still playing competitive soccer. Recenlty finshed playing baseball too. I could never do that with American football. I have in mind to work on a piece that demonstrates superiority of soccer over other sports. Thanks again for doing this research.
Eric

In hockey and basketball, the clock stops when the puck/ball goes out of bounds. This is not so in soccer. I would argue if one is to “calculate” the amount of actual playing time in baseball and football, then it should also be done for soccer, by subtracting the amount of time the ball is out of play.

Question for you. Don’t you feel that if soccer were to become commercially successful, these numbers would go down. Every other sport listed has seen a dramatic increase in commercialization in the last 30 years. If soccer ever did take off in the US, salaries would increase as would every thing else. That money would have to come from somewhere. More commercials , more stopping time. I feel it would become more on par with basketball if that happened ( which is still one of my favorite sports) Realize of course that I am only talking about in the US( your data is from US leagues)

Hard to say. Remember back when MLS started and there started to be local broadcasts of World Cup games, we’d see split screens and like 5 minute periods where a static advertisement would be co-present on the screen with the soccer? That stopped (as did any bastardization of the MLS game, which at the beginning included shootouts to resolve ties and a “countdown clock”). But yet salaries and exposure in MLS has only risen. Nobody would dare to broadcast international soccer that way now.

I think advertising on the jerseys helps. I think the omnipresent scoreboards along the side of the pitch help too (that’s unique to soccer … you get some similar advertising behind home plate in baseball but there’s nothing like it in NFL/NBA). So that helps. I suppose there’s just limited revenues to be made in soccer as compared to the other major sports.

We also could begin to see situations like what we see in Nascar; they don’t stop the race to show ads; they just show the ads and come back to recap any action. Maybe that’s a good model.

I tell you what appeals to me as a soccer fan watching on TV versus the other sports: I know when a soccer match is ending, and I know my time committment is under two hours. I know I have a period of time to take care of things/get food/go to the bathroom during halftime. There’s no interuptions. And the ball is really almost constantly moving; the only sport that comes close to action per minute is hockey.

Thank you for doing this research, this is great. Only thing I want to add is the sport of Rugby has a similar viewing experience like soccer. It has two 40 minute halves with the clock running continuously. Very fun sport to watch with lots of fast paced action…where the games are completed in about 2 hours.

Rugby; i’d be interested to see this same study for Rugby. While it seems like it’d result in similar percentages to Hockey and Soccer in terms of the ball being in play, it seems to me there’s a lot of downtime in Rugby too. And I feel like there’s just waaaaay too many whistles in Rugby. Of course, i’m not nearly as clear on the rules, nor the strategy, so i’m not the best person to listen to here

Sorry, I absolutely disagree about your sentiment about soccer. If you watched the extra time periods between the US and Belgium, you’d never answer something this way. What “happens” in a first down run play where a RB drives into the middle of 15 other 300lb behomoths to gain one yard and then stand around for another 35 seconds until the next play occurs? What “happens” in a play where you wait an entire play-clock just for some stupid false start penalty?

There are an amazing number of Americans who absolutely will not even consider watching soccer for some reason; the game is passionate, skillful, and exciting at times. Its their loss; I have converted more than a few of my formerly ignorant friends just by taking them to a game (we’re in DC and DC United has a great supporter section) or by watching high-level soccer games with them over a beer (marquee English Premier League games, Champions League and of course select World Cup games).

The point of this article was simple; you get far more “bang for your viewing buck” by watching sports that continuously move. Hockey and Soccer being the two best examples. And this post was borne of my absolute frustration with the over-commercialization and just complete wasted time watching modern NFL games.

Thank you so much for putting this together. I am a 44-yr old former “soccer-hater” with a 9 yr old daughter currently playing club soccer. After watching her games for the last 4-5 yrs, I began to appreciate the sport a bit more. Then, I watched the World Cup for the first time this year, and I am HOOKED! It took the first game to figure out the clock and add-on time, as well as the “offside” rule (different than in U8 etc), but after my first game, I realized — no commercials! I thought, “no way this could be the same in MLS” but I was pleasantly surprised. I bought the MLS Live package (1/2 yr at $32 bucks) to continue my World Cup experience, cheering for the Crew. I still love American football, but I’m sick of the increased length of the game, and the # of commercials. When I was a kid, the 1 o’clock games almost NEVER lasted past 4. Now, they routinely do, so much so that we don’t even have 4 o’clock games, they’re 4:15 games. Now, I just DVR the Browns, and only begin watching about 20-30 minutes into the game, so I can fast-forward through the commercials. I’m hoping the MLS eventually plants a franchise in Cleveland, but that doesn’t look likely for quite a while. Anyway, thanks again.

You bet Jerry. I’m in the same boat as you. I have grown utterly frustrated with the conventional NFL games and the number of commercials. At the same time that Soccer continues its renessaince in America.

A running joke in my group of friends was this: “What time is the eight-oclock game on?” Which was a legitimate question because the late game used to be at 8, then it was pushed til 8:15, then again to 8:30 so that the networks could clear their 4:15 games AND have time to broadcast their highly lucrative highlights packages prior to the late sunday night game. Money money money.

I’m glad you like pro soccer. The MLS product isn’t going to match the technical quality that you see in europe, but it isn’t as if you’re watching semi-pro hackers. Europeans who come to america routinely talk about the difficulties they have; the US game is strong, physical and requires significant endurance that you don’t have to have in certain european leagues. Its no surprise that the USMNT was the #1 ranked team in terms of distance covered at the 2014 World Cup; americans are the fittest atheletes out there and make up for shortcomings in quality with superior athleticism at the end of games. That’s why it looked like we could have gotten an equalizer against Belgium with a few more minutes and finally (after 115 minutes of looking overmatched) we finally looked like a dangerous attacking team.

Two or three players standing on a pitch passing he ball back and forth, while everyone else stands around “sucking air” or a player rolling around on the ground in fake agony is not what I would call “action.”

In a 0-0 soccer game how many really exciting scoring chances are there? Two? Three? Five? The balance of the game is simply people running around kicking a ball between them.

No offense Walt, but clearly you have a bias against professional soccer. And that’s too bad, because everything you said is the “cliche” of those who don’t understand the passion and excitement of the game. No there’s not a lot of scoring; that doesn’t mean there’s not a lot of action.

I’d rather watch a 0-0 soccer game, where the ball is actually moving and players are playing more than 2/3rds of the time than watch two poor NFL teams for nearly four hours and through hundreds of beer commercials for a scant 15 minutes of “action.”

Every sport has what you could call “dull action.” NBA players slowly walking the ball up the court and then standing in a half court offense for 20 seconds isn’t exactly “action.” NHL dumps into the opposing ice so they can do line changes? Same. I love baseball and this is a baseball blog, but I won’t defend how slow the pace of play there is, when throws to first can get incredibly tedious. The problem with the NFL is that for every 3 seconds of a play you get ten TIMES that in waiting around. Its awful. I’ll never go to another NFL game in person. The only way I can watch the game now is via DirecTV’s redzone. It is what it is.

Love this post, Todd. I grew up playing football and baseball and continue to watch the Reds and Bengals. However, I absolutely LOVE watching hockey. When you understand the strategy and realize why the players are passing the puck so much, this “down time” turns into suspense and excitement. Yes, it’s great to see the players peppering the net with shots, but setting up the play is just as great.

When I watched the World Cup this year, I started making the comparison of Hockey to Soccer. It’s not merely standing around and kicking a ball back and forth. They’re moving the ball and looking for scoring opportunities. Plus, NOBODY can say that that US-Belgium game wasn’t exciting. I’m not much of a soccer fan, but I was literally jumping up and down on every one of those scoring chances. Plus, it was nice that there weren’t many commercials.

I’d just like to add a point to your article though. Have you been to an NFL game recently? Talk about a drunk fest!! “Fans” are more concerned about heckling quarterbacks and cursing head coaches than actually enjoying the game. I encourage anyone who’s never been to a hockey game to find one and go to it. There’s nothing like the suspense and excitement of an NHL game. I was at the fourth playoff game between the Columbus Blue Jackets and Pittsburgh Penguins when CBJ came from 3 goals down to win 4-3. That place was absolutely ROCKING!!! From what I hear, Columbus Crew games aren’t that bad to go to either. I’ll have to go sometime.

Hey Jon. Thanks for the feedback. Last three NFL games I’ve attended live were here in Washington, in San Francisco and at Oakland.

So, you can imagine what my day-game experience was like. In Washington the stadium is so remote and the in-stadium prices are so high that people get incredibly intoxicated before arriving, then sit in a monstrosity completely void of any character. It takes 2 hours to get there and longer to get out, turning the game into an all day and into the night affair. In Oakland there was a stabbing and a heroin overdose in the parking lot as we walked up, and most of the fans looked like they were either on parole or active members of MS-13. San Francisco featured several out-and-out brawls on the ramps heading into the game, not to mention what can only be described as “aggressive” behavior in the stands from the home fans.

Only in football can you routinely expect to hear fans screaming curse words from the stands. Would you take your pre-teen child there? no way.

Personally, I think Hockey is easily the best in-game user experience. Fast paced action, constant scoring chances and breakaways, not a ton of downtime, somewhat limited/controlled time exposure. Unfortunately, Soccer fans have an up-hill battle in america, where a sizeable percentage of sports fans won’t even consider watching the sport because they equate “scoring” with “action.”

So silly. This is on par with pigs are pink, flamingos are pink; flamingos fly, therefore pigs can fly. Just one item — take that goalie. For the huge majority of the game time, he is just standing there. In Football (American) you can’t just count the action time; there is all the strategy in the huddle, the changes at the line, the reorganizations, the alternative plays —- lots going on all the time, not just in the 4 seconds of play. If you look at soccer the same way, the goalie time is like 4 seconds. Hardly reflective of the game or action.

So Norm, I guess you want to count the time that a bunch of guys are standing around in the huddle as “action?” Sorry, disagree. There’s such “strategy” time in other sports too; in Baseball while the pitcher is awaiting to wind up and the fielders are moving around, in Basketball while the ball awaits to in bound.

And, no matter how you classify “action time” in the NFL, there’s still WAAAAAAY too many commercials, Way too much down time.

Honestly I love sports, and you sir are very biased towards soccer and hockey. Basketball stops the clock a lot when there is no action, actually almost the whole game is action except commercials obviously. Football during the huddle they are strategically coming up what to do next play obviously not action, but neither is it always 35 seconds, that is a huge lie. But I will say football does have the least amount of action but also the most strategic sport. Soccer and hockey is a ton of passing ball/puck around until opportunities arise, if you want to call the action go ahead but its not much. I will say soccer is probably the most cardiovascular sport right ahead of basketball. Football the toughest but the shortest, with hockey on its ass because the fights and checking. Honestly its what you like, its all opinion but when doing something like this dont be biased. I forgot to mention baseball which I think only one player is emphasized during a play, that’s a lot of standing around for everyone else, kind of like the goalies for hockey and soccer. So when you add up that standing around that’s not very much action for those players. Football has offense and defense so they also get huge breaks. Hockey rotates players when they get tired also so does every sport. So its hard to say which one is more action between basketball and soccer.

I am biased towards hockey and soccer in terms of this topic, absolutely. The other sports out there come nowhere close in terms of action for your dollar. And i’m saying that as a baseball fan, under the purview of this being a baseball blog.

“Huge lie?” about NFL teams not always using 35 seconds? Ok sure … but i’ll bet you that across every play of every game the *average* time between plays is closer to 30 seconds than it is to 20…. so my point still stands. My directv DVR has a 30-second skip and darn near every time i use it between plays, guess what? I get right to the beginning of the next play. That’s awfully close to 35 seconds, every time.

But whatever; the stats for NFL and MLB games are pretty clear and pretty well reported.

Even with the time differences of whatever is considered action, even though most of these sound about right except maybe basketball. I feel like the excitement from soccer isn’t as great as basketballs or footballs. To me at least the most exciting part of a game is for it to be high scoring and soccer, hockey, and baseball usually aren’t. Not to say that there aren’t high scoring games in these sports and that they can’t be exciting because I did watch the USA in the world cup and the nationals came back and beat the Yankees today which was very exciting. But nothing I’ve seen can compare to Paul Pierce in the playoffs this year, being from DC you should know what I mean.

For me, each sport is different. I cannot stand the narrative that because soccer is “low scoring” that its boring. I dare someone to have watched the last 20 minutes of the USA-Belgium game in the last world cup and tell me that it was “boring.” That being said; there are examples of both “good” and “bad” action in any sport. I’ve certainly seen 0-0 soccer sludges where the ball rarely left mid-field, and i’ve absolutely watched basketball games (even at the pro level) that featured two teams walking the ball up the court each possession and setting up isolation plays where one guy backs down another for 10 seconds, then flails up a shot which gets called for a foul.

There are “fun” basketball teams to watch (generally a run and gun team like Golden State this year is captivating) just like there’s better soccer teams to watch than others (say, a Barcelona versus a middle-of-the-pack English team).

This article was supposed to be less about the sports itself as about the action. And i’ll admit it is almost entirely a reaction to what the Football viewing experience has become.

Just a question for all those who keep saying football is better because the scores are higher.

How many touchdowns, conversions, and field goals are made?
I understand a lot of it is based on value of each type of action but if you lowered the value for each of those actions correspondingly so that they still mean the same vs the other so that touch downs are 3 conversions are 1 and field goals are 0.5 there won’t be such a “huge” point disparity.

I am not saying that this should be done but one should recognize saying a 2:0 game isn’t as exciting as a 48:24 game or similar is in part due to an inflation of points. Not an actual difference in the action going on during play.

Also the game of American football favors the attacking team as it is harder to defend in the sport than in soccer because you are using your hands. (Face it feet are just harder to use. Not better but definitely harder.)

I wonder if this would differ at all when adding in college football and college basketball. I am a HUGE soccer fan (I like outside the US so we get to call it it’s true name, football ) but am a US citizen and still love college football and March Madness, and wonder if the numbers differ any when compared to their professional counterparts. Have you considered adding in college basketball and football, as those draw millions of viewers (I would isolate March Madness for college bball since that gets the bulk of the viewers)?

Although I disagree with this post and love hockey, I respect that people have their own passions. I would probably watch soccer if there were more scoring chances and their was a “sudden-death” aspect to extra time and bonus time or whatever you call it. But that is just my opinion. I also wish that the sport would get rid of ties altogether like the NHL did in 2005. I can’t stand when I spend two hours of my life seeing a game end in a scoreless tie.

I’ve absolutely watched 0-0 games that were more exciting and passionate than many NFL games that awarded a team a winner. Ask a european soccer fan what they think and they’ll tell you straight away; the sport has a huge home field advantage, teams get a ranking point for a draw, so visiting teams getting a draw away “feels like” a win a lot of the time.

Why are you obsessed with making sure there’s a winner at the end of the contest?

Tennis. Interesting. Tennis would be an interesting one. Problem is, the timing of matches is so vastly different; i mean, a 2-set womens blowout could be 30 minutes while a 5-set w/o a tiebreaker in the 5th could last days. I could look at conventional per-set figures maybe? Great idea.

Excellent article and blog. Thank you. I’ve been so fed up with commercials during NFL games, I’ve pretty much stopped watching NFL all together. I do like the Geico “final countdown” commercial.

And such, I’ve been asking myself the same questions you answered. Thanks. I was going to get a stop watch and do some research myself so you saved me alot of time and head ache.

I think I’ll start watching some soccer and see if I like the game more. I’m in Houston with pro football, basketball, baseball, soccer, hockey, and 5 div. I colleges in area. I don’t go to any games. But soccer may be a new interesting sport to follow because of your article.

I am so sick of commercialization of sports. I can’t do anything about it, but stop watching the NFL (and all football) altogether.

Hey Texas Fan! My business partner is in Galveston and we’ve considered moving to the Houston area … until of course O&G market bottomed out.

Years ago when I first wrote this article it was very anti-football .. i’ve softened it in recent years and added more details when I got them. Glad you found it useful!

If you really want to get into soccer, here’s my suggestion: find a marquee English Premier League matchup between top teams and try that (11/21: Manchester City-Liverpool, 12/19 Arsenal-Manchester City is even better; these are the two teams tied for first in the league right now). Or try the “El Classico” Barcelona Real Madrid league match scheduled for 11/21 and then agan on 4/3/16. And look for the Champions League matches on Tuesdays and Wednesdays; espnfc.com is the best place to find them. If you watch the best of the best, you’re more likely to get a good match as your first one and you may find that you’re as enthralled with high level soccer as the rest of us crazy soccer fans are. DVRs make it so easy to watch now, and between ESPN and NBCsports every major european match is on US tv.

Hey Todd, great article. I tried to find some more exact sources to base the estimates off of, but surprisingly there isn’t a ton out there. If you want to see that data visualized, check out: http://www.cubixinsights.com/blog – would love to collaborate and embed the visual in this article if you’re interested!

Feel free to embed the viz using share feature as it’s on Tableau Public. Screenshot works too but takes away from interactivity. Whatever you prefer, links to my blog aren’t necessary as it’s all your research anyways. Have a good one.

Hello Todd
As a fan of both soccer and football I somewhat find your article to be bias for you don’t even mention how the live action isn’t the main objective to the game the game is based strategy the amazing needle eye throws that most pitchers in baseball couldn’t throw the one handed catches the jarring hits that sends chills up your spine the clutch final second touchdown that wind the game that’s what the sport is really about and I’d why people love it which you fail to mention
In soccer although I enjoy it there is very few exciting moments in the sport when the action is going on mostly just passing and dribbling
Though this is fun for me while I play the game racing down the field while I try to score it’s really boring from someone’s perspective watching the game it almost feels like there’s only 5 minutes of exciting action when a forward scores a goal or the goalie has a miraculous save but everything outside of that is really boring
However in football you hear analysts what’s going on in the game u get a better look in depth at the game, football also shows you records of what the players done while breaking a legends record making the game more interesting. Highlights during the game where u feel that earlier play that fascinated you in soccer you’ll very rarely see that until half or the post game where it’s not too bad but you’ll rarely feel that fascination again. The thing that really puts soccer behind football which is very slim but just beats it is that usually the way for wining games or saving the game is practically the same yes there may be different move to get to the goal great passes that get your mid fielder open but after watching for a while u feel like it’s Deja vu. Where in football there’s many different ways for men to score TDs it could be a trick play that even confuses you a strong tough run where your running back runs over 8 men a pass so beautiful you see artwork
an amazing catch that you couldn’t do in a million years
You really can’t find that anywhere else in world of sports
So football may have only 11 mins of action but to me a thousand minutes has been packed into that 11 minutes
And while soccer may be fun to play it’s hard to watch for its only 5 mins of action into a big bag of 65 minutes

I agree with Brandon I play neither sports and I do prefer baseball but football can be occasionally fun to watch with friends however with soccer there are few moments where you indeed feel that rush of excitement
While the commercial do irritate me
It’s not too bad for the game and friends help me ignore it but with soccer it feels like I’m actually watching commercials until finally someone scores I disagree with you that the 0-0 games are exciting at first when someone has a chance to score its cool but after the next 3 or 4 times it just gets boring and repetitive

Todd personally I hate football and soccer with a passion
Football there is little to none action with a bunch of fools hitting each other
In soccer theres even fewer moments where you feel excited and they always whine for free kicks and injuries that never happened
In hockey and Baseball you never see that in those pathetic sports. You’ll see real men playing a game of the gods
Football and soccer you’ll find little youth’s complaining every second and whining that someone pushed them a bit

Todd I grew up in Germany where Tennis and Soccer were the only sports i could play I absolutely loved soccer I loved shooting goals as a striker trying to save goals when I was the defender or goalie making headers with my friends. But for some reason watching the game was too boring for me growing up I couldn’t understand it but to me.Everything was just back and forth with the ball players passing the ball back to their goalie when they could’ve tried to score it’s really boring. But since I’ve moved to America my friends here have always invited me to football games where there very confusing but at times i get amazed with the plays that happen I’m starting to learn more about this football and I’m getting very interested in it. That was why I was extremely shocked that there was only eleven minutes of action in the game although that is annoying I actual dont mind it. For I’m able to make new friends watching this game and listen to some very cool talk with the reporters in the game. This game of football has been incredible for me as I’m learning more and more I just can’t believe why so many people outside the U.S hate it. Also Rugby is a new sport I’m getting into i find it very similar to football and I was wondering what good channels there are for it do you know

Todd I personally hate soccer and football with a passion
All you see is a bunch of slobs hitting each other in football
Soccer you find so many babies whining for a foul and about fake injuries
Baseball and hockey is a real sport with men
Football and Soccer are just a bunch of youth’s whining every second of the game it really annoying to watch either sport

Brandon and Jack: really the point of the article wasn’t to pass judgement on the virtues of each sport. That will always lie in the eye of the beholder. Some people love Nascar, other people think its just a bunch of rednecks driving in circles for 4 hours watching on the off-chance there’s a wreck. Is that a fair judgement on the sport as a whole? Of course not.

This is a baseball blog, and baseball is my passion, yet baseball is nearly as “bad” in terms of action per minute as football. So i’m not exactly passing judgement on the watchability of my favorite sport. I freely admit it; I can’t stand watching baseball on TV. But I struggle even more with watching a football game on TV, or in person at a stadium. Just an awful viewing experience. That was really the point of the article. That the ball is constantly moving in Soccer and the time limit of the match is known. Hockey is probably the best viewing experience of any of them, especially given the HD advances in broadcasting.

With basketball, a game will average about 45-50 free throws per game (total, not for each team) which eats up about 25 minutes of time. Although the clock isn’t moving, I think it’s still action, so for me a basketball game has well over an hour of actual playing time, despite the game time being 48 minutes.

That’s a tough call; a foul is called, players mill around, line up at the paint, … when does the “action” start? Is it when the player begins his 10-15 second dribbling/brow wiping/grimacing free throw technique or when he actually begins the shot? I’ll admit some of this is “action” but not all of it. And if you claim this is action then you certainly cannot complain about (say) soccer’s back field dribbling or ice hockey’s icing or pickoff plays in baseball.

If someone has research i’m all ears; i don’t think i’ve ever seen someone try to time NBA or NCAA games.

I personally have no problem with soccer’s back field dribbling or stuff like that. I basically count anytime where I can see the players on the court/field/pitch doing something (even if it is relatively boring) and not commercials as action. Some might disagree but that’s my opinion anyway! Also I watch soccer a lot, and while there are some games that there is a lot of boring passing around the back, these are boring games and does not happen all the time. Whereas my main problem with football/baseball is even with the high tempo, fast action games I’m guaranteed to see over an hour of commercials. And actually with football the higher the score the more breaks there are!

Harry; agree. This post for me started years ago when I got tired of all the commercials in the NFL. And its only gotten worse from there. Contrast to soccer; you get ZERO commercials for 45 straight minutes. That’s the real appeal to me. Different sports and certainly different opinions on the matter; there’s absolutely people who are anti-soccer in this country and refuse to even consider it for some reason at the behest of almighty football. But man. … the NFL is a tough watch sometimes. 3.5 hours and 100s of commercials.

[…] interruptions happen in a game that already features breaks with the clock running (huddling). Football players actually stand around more (roughly 46 minutes) than they actually play (roughly 14… Is huddling really necessary at the professional level? Why not reduce the play clock, call the […]

Played soccer and Rugby in my youth, stuck with Rugby because of my size, soccer more challenging and skillful, Rugby more brutal. When I played (5 different countries) I was ok size wise for my position, 6’1″ and 235lbs, fit, now 30 years later I am a midget and would never make the grade at near top level. Its faster, stronger and tailored for athletes, will unfortunately never make it in the US, too many broken noses, arms and legs, parents wont accept it. I know I have coached here for a few years. The camaraderie is unmatched in the US and globally. Incidentally soccer is extremely tough and my most painful injuries were from it. Great post, keep it up.

Ice hockey and soccer dwarf the other sports in terms of action and are even better live than on television. American football and March madness are fun too. NHL (October – June), any major soccer league, NFL and NCAA basketball tournament are on my year round calendar.

I notice you stuck with team sports. I’ve seen t-shirts that say things like “no bench, no timeouts, no substitutions. Welcome to my world”. So – all action, all the time? I believe they (like myself at one time) ran cross-country but there are other individual sports that it might apply to.

Being older, these days I watch rather than participate, The interesting thing about watching NCAA Lacrosse is that there are pretty much no stoppages, and few if any commercial. Which also means that it only shows up on pay channels like the local sports channel and interest streaming services.

dead action means no action. You talk about NFL having huddles meanwhile a defender is just standing there with the ball at his feet doing nothing for 10 second. There is about 12-15 minutes of actual action in a soccer game

Obviously your definition of “dead action” is arguable. But to have stats that show that the ball is “in play” 60-66 minutes of a soccer game and then to claim that only 12-15 minutes of that is “actual action” is totally inaccurate. Find me a gif or a video of any soccer player playing in any professional league in the world who is “standing there with the ball at his feet doing nothing for 10 seconds.” You wont’ find it, unless its clearly the end of a non-competitive game. You may find passes between defenders and think its “dead action” … but certainly that’s action as compared to endless 30-35 second NFL huddle delays and constant 3-4 minute TV replays.

Try it yourself; watch an entire copa America game this coming weekend and time it out. That’s how I started this whole post concept; i sat through an entire football quarter timing the action, counting the commercials, etc. It was excruciating. Sorry; that’s my opinion but its also well supported by the overall degenerating fan experience. It shouldn’t take your entire sunday to attend an NFL game like it does in certain cities thanks to the length of the game, the time it takes to get there and the time it takes to get out of the stadium afterwards.

Todd, I came across this post and wanted to thank you for putting it together. This is a topic that I’ve become very interested in during the past several years, as my interest in football has significantly decreased, and my interest in watching baseball or basketball is now non-existent. At the same time, I have become a HUGE fan of both hockey and soccer, and can’t get enough of either sport. I too had seen the WSJ article on the amount of action time in baseball, but until your post, had never seen a side-by-side comparison of all the sports. I had no doubt that my interest in soccer and hockey had to do with the amount of action in those sports, but your statistics confirmed this, as these two sports had the highest proportion of action to total game time. And the more you watch these two sports, the more you realize how much skill and strategy is involved, and a 0-0 draw can still be very entertaining. If high scoring always translated into entertainment value, Arena Football would be the most popular sport in this country. The fact that it isn’t, lends credence to the notion that scoring isn’t everything.

A couple of other things I’d also like to point out. First, the 18 minutes of action attributed to baseball is generous (even admittedly so by the author of the WSJ article). That figure includes time for home run trots and the batter trotting/walking to first after a walk or hit-by-pitch. If only time where the ball is actually in play in the field is counted, the amount of action in an average 9-inning MLB game is less than 6 minutes. Think about that! Spending three hours of your day to watch 6 minutes of actual action.

Second, in my view, one other factor that contributes to the enjoyment or frustration of watching a sporting event is the influence of bad officiating. In this area, basketball and football are failing tremendously. In contrast, I am often amazed how good of a job soccer and hockey officials do. I’m not saying that there aren’t bad calls in these sports, but it just seems like they occur less often and that bad officiating doesn’t factor into the end results like it seems to in other sports.

Finally, I would just like to add that I have no doubt that in 25 years,, soccer will be more popular in the U.S. than baseball (and I realize this is a baseball website and my comment will probably not be popular). Macho meatheads can criticize soccer all they want, but facts are facts, and there is no doubt that the sport is become increasingly popular in this country. Look at the recent popularity of the Premier League in this country and how many cities are clamoring for an MLS franchise. Look at the crowd in an MLS game and it seems like 80% of attendees are under the age of 40. In contrast, look at the diminishing numbers of Little League participants. Look at a typical crowd at a MLB game and the lack of Millennials in attendance. And again, baseball is 6 minutes of action over a three-hour span. Sorry soccer-haters, the sport is only going to continue to grow in popularity.

Now if I could just see the sport of hockey making similar strides in popularity, I’d be a very happy man.

Thanks for the comments Don. As you can read from the other comments on this blog …. there’s a huge anti-soccer sentiment out there. Your experience matches my own w/r/t Football; i think my last straw was an all-day ordeal to watch a Redskins game at Fedex field. $50 to park, hours to get in or out of the parking lot, plus nearly 4 hours for the game and constant downtime thanks to TV breaks.

Todd, thank you very much.
Your numbers confirm my preferences. Hockey has always been #1. Sometimes I watch entire game. Especially in playoffs.
% of action between soccer and hockey is not comparable. If it’s 2:0 with 5-10 minutes left, which game is over? Hockey or soccer? Kicking a ball or a puck out is not the same. First of all, icing. Secondly, it’s much faster to return a puck than a ball back and create an opportunity for scoring. Also, you can’t kick a puck to your goalie. Goalies may face over 30 shots. How many shots in soccer? Hockey is definitely #1 in terms of real quality time.
I’m in favor of breaks. I want to take a break myself. Just not too many. Regarding football, can’t you tape a game and skip commercials when watching? Is it fair to compare football to chess on the field? Chess may seem boring with little action. Once you understand, you can enjoy it.

GM: Not really a discussion about the nature of the games themselves; this was just about pure “ball in play.” I think its fair to say that nearly every sport has aspects that leave the user experience as “less than desired.” Soccer players can kill the clock, NBA players can do hack a shack and call endless time outs, MLB and NFL just offer so little bang for the viewing dollar.

Baseball and Football when highly edited are pretty good watches; imagine 15 minutes of straight action. I think in the nfl they’re called GM cuts. Chess; never thought about it as a spectator sport because there’s practically no action … but then again, the thought process required in chess is infinitely more complicated than in a sport like baseball, where most pitchers have a very small set of choices for each pitch.

My sport viewing is almost exclusively ONLY soccer – European leagues, MLS, international friendlies, and major tournaments.

I 100% agree with the sentiment of soccer is PERFECT for TV and the 2 hour time slot.

That being said, while I am VERY quick to bash throwball, I mean the NFL and college football, for that whole lack of action and commercial breaks, I will concede soccer is really 90 minutes of commercial.

You have an electronic ad board all along the sideline across from the camera PLUS you have the sponsorship of all clubs. Does that take away from the viewing experience, no?

Does it work? Well…I will not buy a Chevy until after their sponsorship with Manchester United ends, so maybe not what Chevy intended but then again, not only do I know Man United’s kit sponsor, I can probably name the majority of the top Euro clubs and the majority of the MLS kit sponsors.

It might not be commercials in the tradition sense but it is 90 minutes of ads.

It’s all kind ot weird.The people who are providing this modern day city-state war re-enactment entertainment are paid so much more money than average
pay. Like the teams owners and the advertizers have tapped into a repressed violent underlying nature of human beings who are seemingly compelled to suffer through so much just to see a few minutes of actual playing of some sport as some surrogate for war.
It’s unbelieveable that people sit unnecessarily due to tv commercials for hours in cold stadiums, 90 % with seats you can’t really follow or see the game from, or
sitting and watching on tv 15 minutes of play for 3 hours of worthless crap and ads being rammed up ones
brain hole. Sorry,i can’t be a sheep like that.

I agree life tine NFL fan but lately just bored with it, too many penalties, commercials, bad tackling, annoying announcers. Soccer if it got rid of that offside rule where every time it looks like a fast break as in basketball someone is called off sides it would be more fun to watch.

Touchdown = 1 point
Field goal = 1/2 point
Not much scoring in football either, except for commercial sponsors !!
Dunk = 1 point
Free throw = 2 points
Three point line = 3 points
Four point line = 4 points
Equals less intentional fouls by players.
24″ wide flat soccer goal posts/crossbar = lots more scoring
12″ wide flat hockey goal posts/crossbar = lots more scoring
Or you can score 7 points for each goal in soccer and hockey to level scoring comparison with football.
Split screen a soccer game and a football game at the same time and see which one you find yourself watching more !?
Would like to see more Australian Rules Football broadcast – real tough men like hockey players without pads or helmets

I do agree that Soccer could be “improved” with some modified off-sides rules. Instead of a moving line and the consistently poor judgement of a line judge, you either have a chalk line that serves as the barrier or you introduce the capability of instant replay to confirm/overrule line judge calls. Because it seems like EVERY SINGLE SOCCER GAME has a bad off-sides call that negates a score.

Ditch offsides rules altogether and watch scoring soar in soccer.
Might force teams to play man to man, rather than all the various zone formations now employed.
No offsides in basketball seems to give their fans a thrill when they see a dunk by a really tall player on a fast break.
Breakaways in soccer are exciting for fans too, but rare because of the current offsides rules.

It’s hockey #1 for me. While the action time may be similar to soccer (which I also like), for intensity of the action, hockey wins for sure. Think about it. It is the only one of the sports mentioned that has player substitutions without a stoppage in play. In for 60-90 seconds and giving it everything they have. Exhausted and time to come out and in comes the next line. Repeat. OT hockey is the best also. Scoring chance at one end can feel like a win is coming only to lose it on the other end in 5 seconds.

Comparing sports like this is a bit arbitrary. The amount of “action” in any given game does not directly reflect the excitement or watchability of a game. I like American football, baseball, basketball, and FIFA. I also realize that each game is completely different. I’ve seen many exciting games from each sport. I’ve also seen plenty of terribly boring games from each. But you can’t say that the NFL is inherently bad because the ball in play time is less than soccer. I’ve seen quite a few soccer games where there are only a few shots on the goal during regulation. I’d rather watch a mid scoring NFL game. The reverse is also true. I’d rather skip a football game where neither team can move past the 50 yard line and instead watch a soccer game where both teams threaten scoring every few possessions.

Now I do agree that the amount of commercial breaks in football is incessant, but the entire reason anything is broadcast on TV is for the sake of selling ads. Programming is there to entertain you enough to sit through commercials. The NFL is very popular in the US, hence more ads. Soccer players just wear the ads on their jerseys.

Either way, you can’t unilaterally equate “action” time with how “good” a sport is. If that were the case, NASCAR would be #1. People like different sports for various reasons. If the amount of action time is what excites you most about sports, you have a compelling case for why you prefer soccer.

Wasn’t comparing sports; this entire post was about the amount of live action and the number of commercials. In that respect you can absolutely compare across sports, and I did, offering quantitative summaries of # of minutes and # of ads.

A typical Australian Football quarter might run from 27 to 33 minutes, but may be even longer if, for instance, injuries cause delays. Australian Footbal breaks after the first and third quarters are six minutes, with a 20-minute break at halftime. Thus, a match with quarters averaging 30 minutes would last about two and a half hours.

Chess games last hours but the players only spend second actually moving the pieces. Just because you are incapable of understanding football dynamics, doesn’t mean soccer is superior. Any idiot can kick a ball around.

Antonio: the article was about live action time, not a judgement on the sport. I love baseball and freely acknowledge that it has too much deadtime. But you clearly made your opinions evident, without understanding the point of the article, which shows more about your own ignorance than mine. If you can’t see the tactics and strategy of soccer and think its just about “idiots kicking a ball around” then there’s not point discussing this with you. Every sport has tactics and strategy, and every sport takes specialized skills.

[…] not the most boring sport, as haterz are fond of claiming; there’s more ball-in-play action in baseball than there is in football (though obviously far less than in soccer or basketball). But it is […]

The ‘action’ time is well researched and are facts. But the ‘interest’ and the excitement in an NFL game is unmatched and obviously that is reflected by the passion and popularity in the US for NFL. Soccer has its fans worldwide and in larger numbers, but it is undeniably the least popular in US, whether it is the MLS or international variety.
NFL rules sundays and is easily the most well packaged entertainment for the buck in spite of the commercials. Actually the commercials flock to this sport because of its entertainment value. Corporates and fans alike, are not idiots.
And your response to everyone who disagrees with your ‘findings’ shows absolute intolerance towards NFL and bias towards soccer.

And, dont bother responding to my post with the same ‘you dont know soccer’ kind of nonsense. I know enough about either sport and have no patience to read your responses here. My post is just meant to add a rejoinder to those few others who had similarly spare time to post countering the ‘intelligent analysis’.

Yes, its difficult to criticize the NFL with some people. I just got a link forward to me on facebook that was like “the best 25 hits in NFL history” and the comment from the forwarder was “see this is how football used to be before everyone became a p*ssy about it.” Meanwhile the main sports headline yesterday was the finding that 27-yr old Aaron Hernandez had advanced CTE symptoms normally seen in 60-yr old head trauma cases, raising speculation that he was mentally incapacitated while doing all these awful things that landed him in prison and/or led him to end his life.

In this case … if you’re “into” football you don’t really care about the lack of action. And I get it; its the same for baseball, a sport that was designed for a previous generation in terms of his pace of play and relative idleness. You want the experience; lots of people look forward more to the tailgating than the game itself. Or look forward to hanging in a bar with friends while watching the game. So its less about the game, more about the experience.

“High scoring” is deceiving. In American football a 21-14 game could have been as few as 5 scores. (OK, 10 total scores if you want to include each extra point as an individual score, but the clock isn’t running & they are almost a given.) Or a 21-15 game should be termed exciting based on it having 12 total scores — yet they could’ve all been field goals.
I hate all the commercials in football too, but I don’t have to sit idly thru them. I can use a game’s downtime & ads to get something to eat or drink, use the bathroom, check my texts & emails, catch up on world news, flip thru channels to see other games, chat with other people in the room, or make phone calls. And if I miss a score, at the sound of the crowd I can look up and there will be 4 replays. (But you’d have to drag me, kicking & screaming, into a football stadium for a 4-hour game on a Sunday! Unless you have great seats, the players look like ants — or maybe mice if you’ve got “good” seats — running around on a piece of outdoor carpeting. And don’t get me started on people seated in front of you wearing a giant hat or piece of cheese!) American football excitement is about offense so they have the scoring system to increase the perception of excitement: a defensive football game is boring.
The excitement in low-scoring baseball, soccer, and hockey games IS about the defense. I’d rather sit thru a long inning to see it end with a close play at the plate and no points than a half dozen setup 3-pointers for 18 points in a half. (And I played college basketball!) You can weave everyday life through a football game. Maybe mow the front lawn at halftime. You have to limit your time away from the screen for baseball, soccer & hockey games, which I can do as well. But with Americans’ dwindling attention spans, these “slower” TV games just don’t cut it for many people.

Agree on scoring sentiment. Its amazing how many people who, if you asked them about a “pitcher’s duel” in baseball that ends 1-0 would say “oh yeah, great game” but then when you ask them about a 1-0 soccer game they bemoan how “boring” it is because there’s no scoring.

Had this debate with a friend the other day. Sports lend themselves to pausing differently. A Marathon vs the mile comes to mind. Drag racing vs oval racing… Without comparing the intensity of the action and strategy employed the findings in this article are just mute points. Football is strategic bursts and diverse action where soccer is steady movement with less strategy and less diversity in play. A football fan looks at soccer as too simple and just a bunch of ball passing. A soccer fan looks at football as a bunch of strategy meetings with occasional action.

JR .. i’d counter that even with all the strategizing and “intensity” of action with football … a large percentage of the actual action still results in uselessness. Running plays right into a crowded line for no gain, incomplete passes, penalties, delays of game, nedless challenges and reviews of plays. At least the NFL seems to be recognizing that they’ve gone too far, now inlaying a live action shot of the game during pauses in the action while the commercial plays in another window.

And the point of this article isn’t “mute” [sic] … its about live action, not a judgement on the action.

Consider this: have you ever watched high-level squash? Intense back and forth rallies … too many of which end with a slight bump between players and a “let” play (meaning a do-over). Its maddening to me … but its the way the game is played. Does that make it any more or less “useful” of action? No; its just the nature of the game. But there’s lots of action nonetheless.

When considering the excitement level of soccer, it is important to remember the value of each goal. I would say roughly the equivalent of a grand slam in baseball. So every time a team mounts an attack with a powerful striker, it can be thought of watching an at bat with the bases loaded. They don’t happen often, but the potential is often there making it frequently exciting in a way that none fans don’t appreciate.

[…] is in play during an average NFL game — a whopping 11 minutes… Here is a summary by sport: How much live action occurs in each sport? Ball in Play studies summarized at Nationals Arm Race 73Mach1 is online now Quote Quick […]

Hello Redneck inbreeds i come in peace. What do you call an American Football fan… A NONCE. I went to watch a rugby game at the weekend. it is a much more physical sport than in the NFL. 1) you must be 6’5 to play rugby. you must eat a live baby in the initiation to join a rugby club. if this doesn’t prove how tough these players are then you must have your head up your arse. but in the NFL you wear pads and all have vaginas, PUSSY HOLES. if you disagree with any of my views then you fuck your mother, Although you probably already do. HEHE.

I watch first time in my life Super Bowl. I don t understand how people can watch that, 5sec action 5min break, you are watching commercial with small break for few sec of sport action, and u have to watch that for more than 3hours!!! I found today highlight and this is far better to watch than 3h of advertisement. I m from europe, i love real football, volleyball and ski jumping.